Table 2.

Various modalities for diagnosing UCL injury

Modality	Advantages	Drawbacks
Plain X‐ray films	Cheap, readily available, can rule out bony injury	Inability to visualize the UCL, differentiate displaced from non‐displaced UCLs or grade the injury
Stress X‐ray films	In evaluating joint stability, can diagnose partial tears (see text)	Uncomfortable for patient (may require local anesthesia), inherent risk of increased displacement (controversial), unable to differentiate between displaced and non‐displaced UCLs
US	Simple, non‐invasive, cost‐effective(compared with MRI), direct visualization of UCL, less time‐consuming than MRI	Somewhat uncomfortable (requires some stress to be applied to the UCL), requires experienced sonographer and optimal hardware
MRI	Non‐invasive, direct visualization of UCL and surrounding structures, ability to differentiate displaced from non‐displaced tears as well as grading(severity), aids in planning and selecting surgical approach, high sensitivity and specificity	Cost, availability, motion artifact (apprehensive patients with acute injury)
Arthrography	Direct visualization (by joint distension), indirect visualization (by extravasation of contrast)	Time consuming, contrast complications, invasive, does not assess surrounding structures (unlike MRI), difficulty in interpretation of results